The Ambassadors - Google Arts & Culture The Ambassadors The National Gallery, London This picture memorialises two wealthy, educated and powerful young men. On the left is Jean de Dinteville , aged 29, French ambassador to England in 1533. To the right stands his friend, Georges de Selve , aged 25, bishop of Lavaur, who acted on several occasions as ambassador to the Emperor, the Venetian Republic and the Holy See. The picture is in a tradition showing learned men with books and instruments. The objects on the upper shelf include a celestial globe, a portable sundial and various other instruments used for understanding the heavens and measuring time. Among the objects on the lower shelf is a lute, a case of flutes, a hymn book, a book of arithmetic and a terrestrial globe. Certain details could be interpreted as references to contemporary religious divisions. The broken lute string, for example, may signify religious discord, while the Lutheran hymn book may be a plea for Christian harmony. In the foreground is the distorted image of a skull, a symbol of mortality. When seen from a point to the right of the picture the distortion is corrected.

Read more Full Title: Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve ('The Ambassadors') Artist Dates: 1497/8 - 1543 Artist Biography: Holbein was one of the most accomplished portraitists of the 16th century. He spent two periods of his life in England (1526-8 and 1532-43), portraying the nobility of the Tudor court. Holbein 's famous portrait of Henry VIII (London, National Portrait Gallery) dates from the second of these periods. 'The Ambassadors', also from this period, depicts two visitors to the court of Henry VIII. 'Christina of Denmark' is a portrait of a potential wife for the king. Holbein was born in Augsburg in southern Germany in the winter of 1497-8. He was taught by his father, Hans Holbein the Elder. He became a member of the Basel artists' guild in 1519. He travelled a great deal, and is recorded in Lucerne, northern Italy and France. In these years he produced woodcuts and fresco designs as well as panel paintings.

With the spread of the Reformation in Northern Europe the demand for religious images declined and artists sought alternative work. Holbein first travelled to England in 1526 with a recommendation to Thomas More from the scholar Erasmus. In 1532 he settled in England, dying of the plague in London in 1543. Holbein was a highly versatile and technically accomplished artist who worked in different media. He also designed jewellery and metalwork. Acquisition Credit: Bought, 1890 Hans Holbein the Younger | The Ambassadors | NG1314 | National Gallery, London Sorry, your browser doesn't support the video tag. Professor Philip Steadman and Louise Govier discuss 'The Ambassadors' 3 mins 5 secs Transcription Voiceover: The National Gallery Podcast. Miranda Hinkley (in the studio): Anamorphic art is a term unfamiliar to many, a type of optical illusion, such images tend to be hidden and unique by their very nature. Unless you look at a piece of anamorphic art from exactly the right angle, you won’t see the intended image which is often only visible to one person at a time.

I spoke to Professor Philip Steadman, an expert in perspective, and podcast regular, Louise Govier, to find out more, and began by asking Louise to point out the most famous anamorphic illusion in the Gallery, the mysterious white smudge at the bottom of [Hans] Holbein’s masterpiece, 'The Ambassadors'. Louise Govier: Yes, it’s in the skull in the foreground of the painting. I’ve sat in front of this painting with all sorts of groups of people, school children, and asked them what this weird object is, stretched out, white object in the front. And often they say, oh it’s a feather, it’s a baguette, I’m not sure, and you have to wait for one person to be sitting at the right-hand side of the painting who suddenly says, oh, it’s a skull. It’s a distortion that allows you to work out what it is when you just stand in the right place, it seems to pop into position.

Miranda Hinkley: And in fact there’s a clue as to where you have to stand, because if you look at the floor in front of the painting, there’s a very worn patch over to the right, and if we now go and stand in exactly that spot, then it all begins to make sense. Louise Govier: Yes, absolutely. Now I’m standing right in the place where you should be, it looks recognisably like a skull, sometimes a bit more three-dimensional than others, but you can really see that it is meant to be a reminder of death. Of course this is an amazing, very lavish portrait, and if you follow the line up from the skull towards the top left-hand corner of the painting, you realise the tiny thing peeking out is a crucifix. It’s a reminder that these two men are aware of their mortality and of the fact that salvation lies through God, Christ and the afterlife. Miranda Hinkley: Well, we’re also joined by Philip Steadman, who’s an expert on perspective in art and architecture. Philip, is it significant that we’re stood off to the right, would this effect also work if we were on the other side?

Philip Steadman: No, there’s got to be a particular viewpoint from which you look at it, like all perspectives, but with anamorphic perspectives it’s particularly important that you go to the viewpoint. In most pictures in perspective, they’re quite forgiving, you can look at them from many points of view, but anamorphic perspective is a very distorted kind, and it only looks correct when you get round to wherever the viewpoint is. Miranda Hinkley: You’ve been listening to an extract from the National Gallery podcast. You can subscribe to the monthly show by visiting /podcasts.

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If you order several copies for the same art decor and want to select different frames for each, please type "1" in the price sheet above, then select frame for it. You may repeat the steps to select different frames for oil painting reproductions of "5 Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve The Ambassadors Renaissance Hans Holbein the Younger painting on sale". Frame Price and Package USD: Don't you know what to choose? These pictures of canvas back show the difference between stretching and framing. Counted USD: A closer look at Hans Holbein’s “The Ambassadors” | The Artstor Blog A closer look at Hans Holbein’s “The Ambassadors” September 13, 2013 by artstor Hans Holbein the Younger | Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve (‘The Ambassadors’) | 1533 | The National Gallery, London | Photograph ©The National Gallery, London Hans Holbein the Younger’s “The Ambassadors” of 1533 is well known for its anamorphic image of a skull in the foreground , but upon close perusal, the objects on the table between the two subjects prove just as fascinating.

To start with, the painting memorializes Jean de Dinteville, French ambassador to England, and his friend, Georges de Selve, who acted on several occasions as French ambassador to the Republic of Venice, to the Pope in Rome, and to England, Germany, and Spain. The upper shelf, which is concerned with the the heavens, includes a celestial globe, a portable sundial, and various other instruments used for understanding the heavens and measuring time, while the lower shelf, which reflects the affairs of the world, holds musical instruments, a hymn book, a book of arithmetic, and a terrestrial globe.

Hans Holbein the Younger | Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve (‘The Ambassadors’); Detail | 1533 | The National Gallery, London | Photograph ©The National Gallery, London Hans Holbein the Younger | Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve (‘The Ambassadors’); Detail | 1533 | The National Gallery, London | Photograph ©The National Gallery, London Hans Holbein the Younger | Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve (‘The Ambassadors’); Detail | 1533 | The National Gallery, London | Photograph ©The National Gallery, London Hans Holbein the Younger | Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve (‘The Ambassadors’); Detail | 1533 | The National Gallery, London | Photograph ©The National Gallery, London Hans Holbein the Younger | Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve (‘The Ambassadors’); Detail | 1533 | The National Gallery, London | Photograph ©The National Gallery, London Hans Holbein the Younger | Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve (

‘The Ambassadors’); Detail | 1533 | The National Gallery, London | Photograph ©The National Gallery, London Hans Holbein the Younger | Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve (‘The Ambassadors’); Detail | 1533 | The National Gallery, London | Photograph ©The National Gallery, London Hans Holbein the Younger | Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve (‘The Ambassadors’); Detail | 1533 | The National Gallery, London | Photograph ©The National Gallery, London Holbein painted “The Ambassadors” during a particularly tense period marked by rivalries between the Kings of England and France, the Roman Emperor, and the Pope.

Furthermore, the French church was split over the question of the Reformation. The religious and political strife was reflected symbolically in the details of the painting. Among them: A crucifix is half-obscured by a green curtain in the top left corner of the painting, symbolizing the division of the church. The broken string on the lute evokes ecclesiastical disharmony during the Reformation. The open book of music next to the lute has been identified as a Lutheran hymnal, and the book of mathematics is open on a page of divisions which opens with the word “Dividirt.” There are also non-political details throughout the work, such as the ages of the sitters being written in Latin on the dagger’s sheath (Dinteville) and on the book on the top shelf (de Selve). And we won’t even go into the complicated issues with the many scientific instruments, including apparently intentional contradictions and inconsistencies. If you are interested, we highly recommend “The Scientific Instruments in Holbein’s Ambassadors: A Re-Examination” by Elly Dekker and Kristen Lippincott in the Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes , Vol.

62, (1999), available via JSTOR . View “ The Ambassadors ” in the Digital Library and remember to zoom in to see the details, and visit The National Gallery, London page in Artstor to learn about the other 2,370 stunning works in the collection. Jean de Dinteville, French ambassador to London, and Georg… | Flickr Lisby By: Lisby Jean de Dinteville, French ambassador to London, and Georges de Selve, Bishop of Lavaur Holbein painted this work in the early part of his second stay in England, which began in 1532. At this time he was prolific, painting Hanseatic merchants, courtiers, landowners, and visitors. "The Ambassadors," as this painting is known, is his most famous and perhaps greatest painting of this period. The life-sized panel portrays Jean de Dinteville, an ambassador of Francis I of France in 1533, and Georges de Selve, Bishop of Lavaur, who visited London the same year. Until the publication of Mary F. S.

Hervey's Holbein's Ambassadors: The Picture and the Men in 1900, the identity of the two figures in the picture had been a matter of intense debate. In 1890, Sidney Colvin was the first to propose the figure on the left as Jean de Dinteville, Seigneur of Polisy (1504–1555), French ambassador to the court of Henry VIII for most of 1533. Shortly afterwards, the cleaning of the picture revealed his seat of Polisy as one of only four places marked on the globe. Hervey identified the man on the right as Georges de Selve (1508/09–1541), Bishop of Lavaur, after tracing the painting's history back to a 17th-century manuscript. Hervey's identification of the sitters has remained the standard one, affirmed in several extended studies of the painting. However, rival speculation is not entirely dead. Opposition to the identification of de Selve has been based on an inventory of 1589, discovered by Riccardo Famiglietti, which names the man on the right as de Dinteville's brother François.

Leading scholars of the painting argue that this identification of 1589 was incorrect. The work incorporates symbols and paradoxes, including an anamorphic (distorted) skull. According to scholars, these encode enigmatic references to learning, religion, mortality, and illusion in the tradition of the Northern Renaissance.[65] Art historians Oskar Bätschmann and Pascal Griener suggest that in The Ambassadors "Sciences and arts, objects of luxury and glory, are measured against the grandeur of Death". Done Art: Holbein's inner game | The Independent Lifestyle Art: Holbein's inner game In 1533 England was poised to opt out of Catholicism and Europe was in turmoil. Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve, the subjects of Holbein's The Ambassadors, were at the centre but powerless. Andrew Graham-Dixon decodes the restored masterpiece Saturday 1 November 1997 00:02 BST Click to follow Indy Lifestyle Online The weather was freezing, his lodgings were damp and he was unable to shake off an apparently interminable cold in the head.

"I am, and have been, very weary and wearisome," he wrote to his family. "I am the most melancholy, weary and wearisome ambassador in the world." 1533 was a bad year for Jean de Dinteville. But with the help of Hans Holbein he managed to put a brave face on it. Dinteville is the man on the left in Holbein's recently restored masterpiece The Ambassadors, wearing the salmon-coloured satin shirt and the black silk gown lined with lynx fur. This was probably the outfit he bought to wear to Westminster Abbey as France's representative at the coronation of Ann Boleyn, Henry VIII's new queen; and he resented how much attendance at this inauspicious ceremony cost him. "I shall have to go to great expense for this coronation," he complained in another of his gloomy letters home. Holbein, who was himself something of a diplomat, portrayed Dinteville with a countenance unclouded by any such mundane concerns. Wary and self- possessed, the French ambassador stares out from the canvas as if daring us to guess his thoughts.

Those of his companion, Georges de Selve, the Bishop of Lavaur, seem even more cloaked. He is the living image of inscrutability. Impassive and sombre, there is a secretiveness about him which extends even to his posture. He holds his long damask robe about him almost defensively. He leans on a closed book, which seems appropriate since he presents himself to us as one, too. Holbein's double portrait is a carefully constructed visual puzzle devised to test the ingenuity of those who would decode it. Almost every detail has the tantalising character of a clue, hinting at hidden significance: the closed green curtains that form the backdrop to the scene; the often unnoticed silver crucifix they almost conceal in the top left-hand corner of the picture; the scientific instruments; the globes; the books; the lute with the broken string; the famous blur of the skull, rendered in anamorphic perspective, hovering over the elaborate Cosmati-work tiled floor.

Now that the somewhat artificial furore provoked by its conservation has died down - most of those who initially criticised the restoration, including that professional curmudgeon Brian Sewell, concede it has been a success - the National Gallery has decided to devote an exhibition to the picture and its meanings. This may be construed as a gentle hint, an invitation to stop worrying about the physical condition of the painting and to enjoy it again as a work of art. The restoration matters only because it has made it easier to see The Ambassadors for what it is: a painting which contains, locked up within its still surface, the wracks and tumults of an extraordinary moment in history - an image, not just of two men alone with their thoughts in mysterious circumstances, but of Western Europe in the throes of a great religious and political crisis. The Ambassadors was commissioned from Holbein by de Dinteville to hang in his family's chateau at Polisy. One of the earliest of many Italianate chateaux erected in France during the reign of Francois I - a courtly building boom which eventually produced that long line of fantastical castles stretching along the Loire valley - Polisy was gutted by fire in 1992.

It is therefore impossible to reconstruct exactly where or how Holbein's painting would have hung, but the fact that it was designed for private contemplation is an important clue to its character. The Ambassadors is the pictorial equivalent of a Renaissance nobleman's cabinet, the most precious piece of furniture in the house, a repository of secrets and of special knowledge reserved only to those who understand the trickery of its construction. The composition of the picture is even literally reminiscent of a cabinet. The two men leaning on their elbows are like human doors, that have swung open on their hinges to reveal a mass of intriguing bric-a-brac stacked on the shelves between them. This has been the matter of their contemplation, and now it has been opened to our gaze. But do we have the means to interpret it? Thanks largely to the pioneering detective work of Mary Hervey, a dogged and tenacious historian who established the identities of Holbein's sitters almost a century ago - and whose findings are admirably summarised and developed by Susan Foister in the excellent catalogue to the National Gallery exhibition - we have in fact been furnished with keys to many if not all of the picture's secret compartments.

Restoration has, furthermore, clarified some of the more recondite aspects of its symbolism (see overleaf). We know that Jean de Dinteville met Georges de Selve, Bishop of Lavaur, on 23 May 1533, because he noted the meeting in a letter to his brother - also a diplomat - and told him to mention it to no one. Diplomats were expected to engage in some espionage and were familiar with codes and encrypted secrets. This may explain, in part, the character of the painting Dinteville commissioned. The only other record of this secret rendezvous is the Holbein. Although it seems unlikely that we will ever know precisely what the two men discussed we do know what was likely to have been on their minds. Dinteville's mission to London of 1533 took place at a time when the political map of Europe was being redrawn. The ambassador would have been conscious that these were difficult years for his country. France had recently lost all of its Northern Italian territories to the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, whose troops had sacked Rome in 1527.

Meanwhile, the seemingly uncontrollable popularity of new Lutheran ideas threatened to unbalance the political status quo yet further. France was simultaneously threatened from within by Protestant dissenters and, from without, by the quickfire spread of Protestant ideas to powerful states such as England. The impending division of Europe, as much as the English weather, must have contributed to Dinteville's almost Eeyore-like melancholy. Dinteville's visitor on 23 May 1533, Georges de Selve, was greatly exercised by the religious divisions of the time. He had spent much of his career on religious-cum-diplomatic missions trying vainly to stem the tide of Lutheran reform. At the Diet of Speyer of 1529, one of many meetings convened in an attempt to reconcile Protestant and Catholic in the German territories of Charles V, he delivered his Remonstrances aux Alemans, a plea to all German Protestants to consider reunification with the Catholic church. He may well have been in London on similar business, meeting with clerics sympathetic to Protestantism such as Thomas Cranmer, and seeking to dampen down the first smouldering fires of the English Reformation.

Dinteville, too, was in England on a partly political, partly religious mission. He had probably been sent to London to impress upon Henry VIII and his advisers that the French would take a very dim view of plans to establish a separate Church of England. But as it turned out, Dinteville arrived too late to influence a monarch who would almost certainly have refused to listen to him anyway. As soon as he got to London, it was plain that Henry had already taken the decision to divorce Catherine of Aragon. Since Catherine was Charles V's aunt, the Pope, who had been Charles's political puppet since the Sack of Rome, could not conceivably sanction such an act. The only way forward for Henry was to declare himself the head of an independent Church of England and grant himself his own divorce. This is what he did, and that in turn opened the way to the conversion of England to the Protestant faith.

Dinteville's disapproval of the events unfolding before him is almost audible in his letters back to France, especially in his scandalised comments about Ann Boleyn's appearance at her coronation: "This Queen is clearly pregnant." She was indeed, and in September Dinteville, as Francois I's representative, attended the baptism of the child: the future Elizabeth I, destined to become the monarch of an irrevocably Protestant nation. In other words, the two ambassadors found that they could do no more than witness events that they themselves were powerless to influence. Alone in their room, they are reminiscent of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern - men condemned to bit-parts who can only watch from the wings as extraordinary events take their course centre stage. Holbein's intricate double portrait is both an allegory of their impotence and a consolation for it. The Ambassadors is history miraculously preserved, a piece of the past made so immediate that it still lives in the present.

`Making and Meaning: Holbein's Ambassadors', National Gallery, London WC2 (0171-747 2512), 5 November-1 February The objects heaped on to the shelves on which both men rest their elbows (seen in detail, above) symbolise the disarray into which they felt their world had fallen. It used to be thought that the various astronomical instruments on the top shelf, which include a celestial globe as well as a number of different mechanisms for telling the time by the motions of the sun, might indicate some important date relating to their respective diplomatic missions. But cleaning of the picture has established that each one of the instruments to the right of the celestial globe - a cylindrical shepherd's dial, two quadrants, a polyhedral sundial and a torquetum - are all curiously misaligned for use in a northerly latitude.

This is unlikely to have been an oversight on the artist's part, since one of his closest friends in London was the astronomer Nikolaus Kratzer (the subject of a small but brilliant portrait in the Louvre) and Holbein can be counted upon to have sought his advice, if not the loan of actual instruments, in the preparation of the painting. He was, after all - it is implicit in his style - nothing if not a meticulous artist. The misaligned instruments are surely emblems of chaos, of the heavens out of joint. The fact that they were intended to be read symbolically is suggested by the generally encrypted nature of the whole painting and confirmed by the lute with a broken string on the shelf below - which was, by 1533, an entirely conventional symbol of celestial discord, and could be found in many emblem books sold to artists with an allegorical turn of mind. If the theme of the upper shelf is discord in the heavens, most of the objects on the lower shelf refer to anarchy down below, here in the mutable sublunary sphere of human affairs.

The celestial globe has been replaced by a terrestrial globe on which may be made out the words "Baris" and "Pritannia" - spelling had not yet been standardised in the 16th century and these are thought to be Holbein's phonetic renderings of his own Germanic pronunciation of "Paris" and "Brittany" respectively. The open book immediately below the globe (and therefore, quite literally, its subtext) is an apparently innocent work of practical mathematics, Peter Apian's New and Reliable Instruction Book of Calculation for Merchants. But it is open at a most un-innocent page, which begins with the word Dividirt: "Let division be made". To those with sharp eyes and the ability to think laterally - or to those let in on the secret by the Dinteville clan, as they contemplated this picture in the privacy of Polisy - this was clearly a reference to the great religious schism that was tearing Europe in half in the 1530s. Division was indeed being made.

The book next to this one is a hymnal open at the "Veni Sanctus Spiritus", a hymn to the Holy Spirit, traditionally invoked as a force for church unification. The dream of reconciliation expressed in this small detail of Holbein's picture would never materialise. The objects speak, therefore, of the wreckage of the ambassadors' hopes and aspirations. But they are not downcast because, as the picture shows, there is another and yet larger scheme of things by which they are content to live their lives and be judged. At the very bottom of Holbein's picture, we find the most paradoxically blatant statement of its cryptic nature. The unclear object obliquely jutting up from the floor still seemed a complete mystery as recently as 1867 when the then director of the National Gallery, Ralph Wornum, described it as an inchoate shape like "the bones of some fish".

Thanks to the researches of Susan Foister and to modern computer technology we know exactly the point at which to place one's eyes in relation to The Ambassadors in order to read this detail as the initiate into the picture's secrets was intended to: at a right angle 120mm away from the wall surface, 1,040mm from the bottom of the picture and 790mm to the right of it. The grinning skull thus revealed represents the most brutal of all facts of life: the inevitability of death. At the very top of the picture, we find the last piece in the jigsaw puzzle, the detail that fixes all the other details in place and gives them their final meaning. The crucifix in the top left- hand corner is the counter to the skull. The cross stands for the Resurrection, for God's gift of eternal life which awaits all those of true faith. It is from the small truth of a broken world, in the here and now, to this larger truth, under the gaze of God, that the ambassadors turn to stare us straight in the eye.

They may have failed in all their schemes and projects, but piously sure of their own redemption, they will retain their admirable sang-froid for all eternity.

More about: Double Portrait of Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve (also known as The Ambassadors) - The Younger Hans Holbein Oil Paintings - Holbein Paintings - PE36217 Double Portrait of Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve (also known as The Ambassadors) Museum Quality Hand-Painted Oil Painting Reproduction on Canvas Item No.: PE36217 Step 1: Select Painting Size Select 16" x 20" (40 x 50 cm) $1,145.00 20" x 24" (50 x 60 cm) $1,295.00 24" x 36" (60 x 90 cm) $1,495.00 30" x 30" (75 x 75 cm) $1,595.00 30" x 40" (75 x 100 cm) $1,995.00 36" x 48" (90 x 120 cm) $2

,295.00 40" x 60" (100 x 150 cm) $2,995.00 48" x 60" (120 x 150 cm) $3,145.00 48" x 72" (120 x 180 cm) $3,545.00 For a Custom Size click here Step 2: Select Frame (Scroll to View Options) Unframed Step 3: Place Your Order Painting Price Free Shipping & Handling see details If your painting is purchased without purchasing a frame, it will be shipped unframed and rolled in a heavy-duty shipping tube.

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Oil Painting Subject: Pureinsight - "The French Ambassadors" by Hans Holbein the Younger<br> "The French Ambassadors" by Hans Holbein the Younger<br> Author: Printer-friendly version [PureInsight.org] At an early age, Hans Holbein the Younger (1487-1543 A.D.) began to study painting with his father, Hans Holbein the Elder, a recognized artist in the Flemish tradition who was a skilled portraitist. He left home for Switzerland at the age of eighteen and settled in Basel where he quickly became established as a book illustrator, a splendid decorator, and an expert portrait artist. His likeness of Erasmus of Rotterdam painted soon after the famous author settled in Basel, gives us a truly memorable image of Renaissance man. Protestantism was introduced into Basel around 1522 and grew considerably in strength and importance during the next several years. By 1526 severe iconoclastic riots and strict censorship of the press swept over the city resulting in a freezing of the arts. Erasmus suggested that Holbein leave the country to seek new commissions and gave him a letter of introduction to Sir Thomas More, chancellor of England under Henry VIII.

In 1526 Holbein, carrying a letter of introduction from Erasmus to the English statesman and author Sir Thomas More, set out for London. Leaving Basel late in 1526, Holbein traveled to England and achieved immediate success. His most impressive works of this time were executed for More and included a magnificent portrait of the humanist. Holbein returned to Basel in 1528 and used his English earnings to buy a house for his family. But Basel, becoming fanatically Protestant, was now gripped by religious upheaval. In spite of generous offers and pleas from the city council of Basel, Holbein left his wife and children for a second time in 1532, to spend the last 11 years of his life primarily in England. By 1533 Holbein was already painting court personalities, and four years after that he officially entered the service of King Henry VIII of England. It is estimated that during the last 10 years of his life Holbein executed approximately 150 portraits, life-size and miniature, of royalty and nobility alike.

These portraits ranged from a magnificent series depicting German merchants who were working in London to a double portrait of the French ambassadors to portraits of the king and his wives. "The French Ambassadors" is the most famous work by Holbein. It is more than just a portrait of Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve. It reflects the political relationship between England and France, the religious revolution at the time, as well as his personal philosophy of life. Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve ("The French Ambassadors") 1533 Oil on oak, 207 x 209 cm National Gallery, London Note the half-hidden silver crucifix behind a green curtain on the top left This picture memorializes two wealthy, educated and powerful young men. At the left is Jean de Dinteville, aged 29, French ambassador to England in 1533. To the right stands his friend, Georges de Selve, aged 25, Bishop of Lavaur, who acted on several occasions as ambassador to the Emperor, the Venetian Republic and the Holy See.

The two men stand at either side of a table covered with a collection of objects that can be related to the Quadrivium, the four mathematical sciences of the Seven Liberal Arts: arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. But this is not the traditional Quadrivium of the Medieval university, but the Quadrivium of the new learning based on direct experience and with practical applications. The instruments and books displayed reflect the design of the cupboard itself in that those on the upper shelf would be used for the study of the heavens and heavenly bodies (celestial globe, compasses, sundial, cylindrical calendar, level and quadrant), while the objects on the lower shelf have more to do with everyday worldly matters. Thus, on the left - next to the worldly-minded Dinteville - is an open copy of Peter Apian's book of calculations for merchants (published in Ingolstadt, 1527), and on the right - near the bishop - a copy of Johann Walther's "Geystliches Gesangbüchlein" (Hymnal) (Wittenberg 1524), containing Luther's hymns.

It is open at Martin Luther's hymn, "Come Holy Ghost Our Souls Inspire." Among the objects on the lower shelf are a lute, a case of flutes, a hymnbook, a book of arithmetic and a terrestrial globe. Holbein has made some modifications in the terrestrial globe on the lower shelf including spelling variations like "Pritannia" for "Britannia." The most significant modification is the inclusion of "Policy", Dinteville's seigneurial estate. Certain details could be interpreted as references to contemporary religious divisions. The broken lute string, for example, may signify religious discord, while the Lutheran hymnbook may be a plea for Christian harmony. Holbein's attitude is documented by two of Luther's hymns in Walther's hymnal. The stable, balanced, serene composition is interrupted only by a long gray shape that rises diagonally from the floor. When viewed from the proper angle, this shape is recognized as a "death's-head" or skull --reflecting Holbein's interest in symbolism and radical perspectives. What could be the meaning of the skull in this painting? The skull has been a symbol of mortality in the western world. No one can escape death.

It is a symbol of merciless final judgment, as well as the eternity of time. The two young scholars and ambassadors had attained social status, wealth, knowledge and fame, but they did not look proud or pleased. On the contrary, they looked slightly sad and melancholy. Perhaps they had already realized that life is short and transient and that all the fame and wealth will soon turn into nothing. Even the friendship between them will only be remembered in this portrait. Art may outlive a man's life, but only the truth shall live forever. The painting asks us to see invisibly the invisible truth, or death, which is hidden behind the surface of appearances. It might be a hint that one must look beyond the surface and look at things from a different perspective in order to find the truth. When an audience views the portrait from the front angle, he is likely to be touched by the beautiful details and regard the skull as nothing but a shadow. But when an observer views the portrait from the right angle, he will see the hidden skull, or the truth, but the two men and the luxury room will become distorted and meaningless. Which is the truth? Which is the illusion?

The artist seems to be saying that everyday people tend to fall prey to the illusionary things on the surface. They tend to take the illusion as the truth and the truth as illusions. The skull was constructed in such a way as to produce an optimum viewing point to the right of the picture, which easily coincided with a position which an adult could take up standing at right-angles to the wall on which the picture was hung, provided this was at a relatively low height. The Ambassadors by Holbein | Blog about portraits Anthony van Dyck » The Ambassadors Painting Hans Holbein the Younger, one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century, was an outstanding religious and portrait painter of the Renaissance. He was born in Augsburg, Germany in the winter of 1947/1948 and worked as a young artist in Basel. His work ranges from illustrating books, woodcuts, glass paintings, altarpieces and portraits. He became a court painter to Henry VIII although he had several sitters who are noblemen, merchants, archbishops and scholars. He was the first portrait painter who gained international fame.

Named after his father Hans Holbein the older, he was named the Younger to distinguish him from his father who was an accomplished Late Gothic school painter. One of his masterpieces, The Ambassadors, which is famous for its controversial connotation, was the topic for debate between scholars and art experts. The Ambassadors, considered as one of the most widely known portraits of the Renaissance period, is a double portrait of Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve. He made this artwork in 1533 which was the culmination period of his career as a portrait painter. During this “last period” of Holbein’s life, he focused mainly on the wealthy German merchants in London and the King and his court as his subjects. However, it was also during this period when he learned the technique of portrait miniatures. Holbein is known not only for the precision of his portraits’ appearance but he is also famous for embedding layers of paradox, allusion and symbolism into his portraits as evidenced in his ever puzzling masterpiece “The Ambassadors.” Several points made this painting eminent over the years. Holbein flawlessly created the timeless masterpiece of symbolism and anamorphosis in this painting.

The painting’s meaning and symbolism has been argued about over the centuries. About five centuries have passed but still the painting remains to be one of the most exceptional examples of anamorphism. Aside from its anamorphic art, the message and meaning depicted in this double portrait has been a continuing issue. Over the years, scholars have been trying to figure out what the portrait conveys. Holbein has been very precise in integrating symbols and figures into this art that even scholars have no definite interpretation of the portrait’s emotion and message. This portrait depicts two members of Henry VIII’s court who are expertly portrayed with objects that are related to their higher learning and worldliness. Holbein did not only mean to show the portrait of his subjects but he associated them with symbols that describe the characters of the two persons involved. Scholars and experts in Renaissance art have different interpretations about the idea conveyed in the portrait. Some scholars see it as unification of the church and of capitalism. While others believe that the painting artistically shows the conflicts between religious and secular authorities. This conflict is represented by the two figures – de Dinteville who is a land owner and de Selve who is a bishop.

The two subjects are surrounded by commonly accepted symbols of discord like the lute with a broken string and a hymnbook with Martin Luther’s translation in it. These symbols suggest conflict between the clergy and the scholars. This masterpiece by Holbein has gained him the respect of other portrait painters . His splendid technical skills, wide-ranged knowledge on three-dimensional form and space, and precise eye for realistic detail are the skills that are exclusive to him. These attributes are what makes his paintings show true emotions and characters effortlessly. Author: Shyxter This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 16th, 2011 at 9:00 am and is filed under Great Portraits . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Question: How are 'Jean de Dinteville' and 'Georges de Selve' described in a famous painting by Holbein?
Answer: 'THE AMBASSADORS'